In the Classroom - Polisci - Rutgers, School of Arts and Sciences

Welcome to the Department of Political Science

Jack S. Levy
Board of Governors' Professor
Subfield: International Relations, Doctoral Faculty
Office: Hickman Hall - 304
Phone: 848-932-1073
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Curriculum Vitae
Specialties:
International Relations, Causes of War, Foreign Policy Analysis, Political Psychology, and Qualitative Methodology
Graduate Content:
Program in International Relations
Bio:
Professor Jack S. Levy is Board of Governors Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, and Senior Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. His research focuses on the causes of interstate war, foreign policy decision-making, political psychology, and qualitative methodology. Levy received a B.S. in Physics from Harvey Mudd College and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has previously held tenured positions at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Minnesota, and visiting or adjunct positions at Tulane, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and NYU. Levy is past president of the International Studies Association (2007-08) and of the Peace Science Society (2005-06). He received the Helen Dwight Reid (now Merze Tate) Award for the best dissertation in International Relations in 1975-76 from the American Political Science Association, the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Foreign Policy Analysis Section of the International Studies Association (2000), and the Distinguished Scholar Award for lifetime achievement from the International Studies Association’s International Security Studies Section (2022).
Teaching:
090:294: Interdisciplinary Honors Seminar

790:324: Causes of War

790:631: Theories of War and Peace

790:634: Foreign Policy Analysis
Publications:
His books include:
- War in the Modern Great Power System, 1495-1975 (1983).
- Explaining War and Peace: Case Studies and Necessary Condition Counterfactuals (co-edited with Gary Goertz, 2007).
- Causes of War (with William R. Thompson, 2010).
- The Arc of War: Origins, Escalation, and Transformation (with William R. Thompson, 2011).
- The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, 2^nd ed. (edited with Leonie Huddy and David O. Sears, 2013) (3rd ed. forthcoming).
- The Outbreak of the First World War: Structure, Politics, and Decision-Making (edited with John A. Vasquez).
Selected articles:
- “Case Studies: Types, Designs, and Logics of Inference.” Conflict Management and Peace Science, 25, 1 (Spring 2008): 1-18.
- "Learning and Foreign Policy: Sweeping a Conceptual Minefield." International Organization, 48, 2 (Spring 1994): 279-312.
- “Counterfactuals, Causal Inference, and Historical Analysis.” Security Studies 24, 3 (September 2015): 378-402.
- "Prospect Theory, Rational Choice, and International Relations." International Studies Quarterly, 41, 1 (March 1997): 87-112.
- "The Diversionary Theory of War: A Critique." In Manus I. Midlarsky, ed., Handbook of War Studies. London: Unwin-Hyman, 1989. Pp. 259-288.
- "Preferences, Constraints, and Choices in July 1914." International Security, 15, 3 (Winter 1990-91): 151-186.